Taking photos for my music magazine

These are a selection of the images I have taken of my friend Kai for my music magazine out of approximately 30, which I will narrow down and choose a few to be featured in my final design. I look them in my home against a pink wall as this is where the lighting was best, to have a good quality effect on the image and to exaggerate her facial features. I chose to make the images high key as I think this would make them stand out more to the target audience sue to the bright colours and effectively make the magazine also stand out. I did however experiment with both high and low key however the low key images I took were not very effective as I didn't take my images in a professional studio therefor the lighting was not powerful enough and the camera I used was not of a good enough megapixel.I dressed my model in a New York jersey and a thick gold chain to give her a modern pop styling to correspond with the magazine and appeal to my target audience. the make up I used was of very basic tones to link with her outfit but with a pop of colour on her lips to make them stand out.

I chose to use a vary of poses throughout the photo shoot to give the reader different connotations in each image. For instance in the first image I have used a pose where my models body is facing the side with her head turned to make eye contact with the camera lens making a connection to the audience, she also has her arm bent with her hand gently touching her face, I have done this to connote innocence as she is the new 'pop princess' and is vulnerable to the media at the moment. The pose however changes dramatically in the third image showing the model closer to the camera with her whole body directly face on in front of the camera lens with her arms raised touching her hair, this image connotes the artist to be dominant and in control which links with the main article where she talks about taking control of her career and the media.

I didn't use many props except for some bubbles which you can see in the second image where my model is shown blowing the bubbles. I chose to use bubbles as they are seen as fun and will connote joy giving the images a young essence as bubbles are related with younger children as that is their target audience for the product and children enjoy playing with them. I also think the bubbles worked fairly well as they gave a bit more life to the image and in my opinion something extra. By using the bubbles it also gave my model something to work and get energy from. They also gave the model a good opportunity to base some of her poses round creating a greater vary of images to choose from. However I wouldn't use any of the images which include the bubbles on my front cover as they could take away the eye contact with the target audience and make the main image less striking not as effective at pulling the reader into the magazine. On the other hand I would use these images either on the contents page or on the double page spread as these images don't have to be as bold and will give an element of fun to the page.


There is however a few weaknesses to the these photos, such as the location where I took them as the lighting wasn't the strongest and the camera I used to take the photos does not have a very high megapixel which left the images slightly pixelated. I could have improved the lighting by taking these images during the day when the sun was out as this would have made the room brighter with natural lighting, this also would have reduced the amount of shadow in the background of the images and on her face in certain images. I think these images would have also been improved if I had taken them on a more plain background with no other objects in the way such as in these images, the door, light switch and cupboard.